On-Prem Platform Engineer - Kubernetes & VM Fabric

Mako Trading; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible leave policies

Hybrid working

Private health and dental insurance

Generous pension scheme

Free gym access

Wellbeing guidance and support

Mako Foundation involvement

Job summary

Mako seeks a Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate our on‑prem Kubernetes platform on a self‑managed Linux VM fabric. You will own the infrastructure from hypervisor to cluster lifecycle, ensuring performance, security, and reliability without a managed control plane.

You’ll shape the VM fabric architecture, automate lifecycle via IaC, manage etcd, and drive GitOps delivery for cluster config and workloads. Work with application teams to build a robust, self‑service platform.

Qualifications

• Solid production experience running Kubernetes in a self-managed, on-premises context (not cloud).
• Hands-on experience designing and operating a Linux KVM/libvirt-based VM fabric for Kubernetes.
• Strong Linux systems administration background (networking, storage, kernel, troubleshooting).
• Practical knowledge of Kubernetes networking and storage (CNI, CSI, Ceph/Longhorn).
• Experience with IaC and configuration management (Terraform, Ansible, Packer).
• Experience with GitOps workflows and CI/CD pipelines.
• Comfort with observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Loki).
• Security-conscious with RBAC, secrets management, and baseline hardening.
• Strong troubleshooting across hypervisor, OS, network, container runtime, and Kubernetes control plane.

Responsibilities

• Design the Linux VM fabric underpinning the platform from the ground up (hypervisor, host networking, storage).
• Operate and maintain the hypervisor layer across multiple hosts with patching and live migration.
• Design and maintain distributed shared storage (Ceph or alternatives).
• Create VM templating and golden-image pipelines for consistent node provisioning.
• Automate the VM lifecycle end-to-end via infrastructure-as-code.
• Plan capacity and headroom for node failures and maintenance.
• Own virtual networking and handoff to Kubernetes CNI.
• Manage full lifecycle of on-prem Kubernetes clusters (bootstrapping, upgrades, scaling).
• Operate etcd including backups, performance tuning, DR.
• Configure and tune cluster networking (CNI, network policies, load balancing).
• Stand up ingress and internal DNS across environments.
• Integrate persistent storage via CSI drivers.
• Enforce multi-tenancy, RBAC, and policy at Kubernetes layer (OPA/Gatekeeper).
• Build GitOps-based delivery for cluster config and workloads (ArgoCD/ Flux).
• Harden hosts and clusters to CIS benchmarks; manage secrets (Vault, sealed-secrets).
• Develop observability across stack (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenSearch/Checkmk).
• Execute upgrades with minimal disruption; plan DR and backup strategies.
• Troubleshoot incidents from pod to VM/hypervisor; participate in on-call rotation.
• Collaborate with app teams for self-service namespaces and CI/CD tooling.
• Coordinate with datacentre and network teams on provisioning and capacity.

Skills

Kubernetes

Linux systems

VMware/libvirt

IaC

Terraform

Ansible

GitOps

Observability

Security hardening

Troubleshooting

Tools

Packer

Cluster API

Kubespray

Prometheus

Grafana

OpenSearch

Checkmk

Ceph

Job description

Mako seeks a Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate our on‑prem Kubernetes platform on a self‑managed Linux VM fabric. You will own the infrastructure from hypervisor to cluster lifecycle, ensuring performance, security, and reliability without a managed control plane.

You’ll shape the VM fabric architecture, automate lifecycle via IaC, manage etcd, and drive GitOps delivery for cluster config and workloads. Work with application teams to build a robust, self‑service platform.